


You Are John Egbert

by herekittie



Series: (We don't get our) Happily Ever After [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Hallucinations, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Post-Sburb, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-07
Updated: 2014-10-07
Packaged: 2018-02-20 06:17:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2418101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herekittie/pseuds/herekittie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is JOHN EGBERT and your life is a living hell.</p><p> </p><p>In which John sees pieces of the game everywhere, his friends don't talk much and he wonders why winning feels like losing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Are John Egbert

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [After Effects](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2096835) by [orphan_account](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account). 



> I am not an expert on mental disorders nor have I studied them. What I've written is my take on what happens to John after the game. The tags are added after the story was written and chosen to best fit what happens in the story. If you think there is a better tag or a tag is not suitable, please feel free to comment and I will make the necessary changes.

Your name is JOHN EGBERT and your life is a living hell.

Not hell in the figurative sense, hell in the literal sense. You see monsters everywhere (but you know they are not there at all): imps behind every corner, ogres on every roof, basilisks on every street. Yellow salamanders wearing old bed sheets and crumpled hats and selling wares.

You can hear the wind. Talking, whispering, screaming to you every time of day, but you cannot hear their words. All you hear is the rush and displacement of air, the empty howl they leave behind, and they don’t hear you anymore too.

Your dad is worried about you but you insist you are fine, great even! Even if your friends don’t talk as much as they did, with you and each other, and the conversations are a lot less light-hearted and a lot heavier than before.

Rose seemed to be stuck in a permanent stasis, unsure of her words and what to send and what not to send.

Dave goes on and on and on but they are meaningless rambles and extended metaphors, but you watch the lines of red pop up in the chat window and watch them flood the screen because that was the most you could get nowadays.

You are lucky if your messages even gets to Jade, much less get a reply.

When you first saw the little red spoon on the top of a box of cake mix after you returned, your heart pounded and your vision narrowed and your hammer slid out of your specibus and into your hand without a thought. When your dad came into the kitchen minutes later, drawn by the screams and shouts and noises of destruction and with fatherly concern on his face, you look down at the mess you made and it was as if you yourself just stumbled across the scene.

Powdery mix, burst from their bags, and crushed cardboard boxes around your legs. The counter covered in spider webs of cracks and littered with little craters that fit the head of your hammer. You, hammer in a white-knuckled hand, panting hard with eyes wild and stinging.

Your dad threw out all the Betty Crocker products you had around the house while you scream into your pillow, wondering why your Happily Ever After felt like a nightmare.


End file.
